Edward Albee, Creator of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', Passes Away

Edward Albee, the renowned American playwright and openly gay creator of the famous work 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', passed away on Friday, September 16, at the age of 88 near New York City in the United States. After the deaths of Arthur Miller and August Wilson in 2005, Albee, who had won three Pulitzer Prizes throughout his career, was regarded as the greatest living playwright in America. According to Reuters, Albee died last Friday afternoon after a period of illness in Montauk, Long Island. Throughout his professional career, he published 25 works, among which 'A Delicate Balance', 'Seascape', and 'Three Tall Women' are noted as his best. He won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Literature for the first work in 1967, for the second in 1975, and for the third in 1991. However, he is now most recognized for another play he wrote before these works: 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. In 1966, Hollywood adapted 'Virginia Woolf' into a film featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who were a couple at the time, and perhaps that is why they shone in the roles of the couple in 'Virginia Woolf'. The Academy Awards that this film won further elevated Edward Albee's name. Albee himself also received the Tony Award, the American theater equivalent of the Oscar, for this play. In the introduction to his play 'The American Dream', Edward Albee described his works as: 'An examination of the American landscape... and a stance against the myth that the shaky ground beneath our feet [America] is a land of flowers and nightingales.'